I certainly agree, and perhaps I'm over analyzing this. It's just curious that if the limit to attenuation was the dextrins in the beer (as determined by the mash temp), why did the WLP001 drop it more?

Did the WLP002 finish lower simply because it flocc'ed sooner than the WLP001 did? Or, does it have more to do with the ability of a particular strain to munch on certain sugar mixes in the wort?

I know if you have a conical, you can bubble C02 from the bottom to get the yeast back into suspension. Perhaps that would have allowed the WLP002 to attenuate more fully?

Just did a 5 gallon split batch (2.5 each) with this yeast and WLP001. The 1450 was right from the smack pack after about 6 hours and the WLP001 from a starter that had krausened but not been chilled. The 1450 took off much faster. Perhaps that is a thumbs up to the Wyeast smack packs.

Question: I keep hearing 1450 has a full mouthfeel. What exactly is it about this yeast that gives that impression? I always associated mouthfeel with other parameters of the recipe/process but never the yeast.

So I made an American Amber with an OG=1.074 and pitched a WLP002 starter. It ended up at an FG=1.016. That's an apparent attenuation of 77% which is good for this yeast (White Labs says 63-70% is typical.) However, the beer was still too sweet on my palate. So, I pitched some WLP001 and that brought it down to 1.013, for a final attenuation of 81.5% Tastes much better.

So, my question is, what do people see with WLP002? Is that kind of attenuation more typical, or did I just get lucky?

I've also heard folks have good luck with rousting and even adding some extra yeast nutrient and/or simple sugar partway through fermentation. Same question as earlier: Will WLP002 attenuate even further doing this?

Finally, I overshot my mash temp of of 154 and hit 158. I knocked a couple of degrees off that such that my mash profile was something like 158->156 for 10 minutes, then 156->155 for 50 minutes. So, my next question is, if I would have hit a lower mash temp, would WLP002 have attenuated even more? Or should I always plan on pitching a finishing yeast

As an interesting side note, I had heard of people using beano, but the it keeps breaking down dextrins until it is done or denatured at 130F. So, as an experiment, I took two equal 1/2 gallon growlers and fermented one with straight WLP001 and the other with WLP001 plus a beano tab. As already stated, the one with just WLP001 went to 1.013. The interesting thing is that the one with the beano finished at 1.001 and it may not yet be done! It still had some bubbles.

Nice. I was looking for an easy to make stir paddle and this just might be the ticket. I didn't want to fab something like this article shows, but I do like the idea of getting a toroidal movement of the mash.

How do those propellers do? Do they create a slow toroidal type movement? How does the finish hold up? What motors are those?

I think the steaming method sounds pretty easy and also pretty quick. No spritzing and turning, spritzing and turning. Put it in a bag and steam - what could be easier? The water needed to create enough steam to get a 2% increase in moisture is minimal and would come to a boil very quickly. You can let that happen while you're weighing the grain. He says 1 - 2 minutes of steaming with a short rest. Pretty quick.

Perhaps there are other advantages to steaming? Do you get better saturation of the husk with steam and thus less breakage during milling? Definitely sounds like it could give more consistent results. Steam is the same temp every time, and you time how long the grain is exposed. Very repeatable. Stirring once or twice eliminates variables due to grain quantity.

Not knocking the bucket method, I just don't think steaming is that big of a deal. I can even do it in my cooler since I use a steam infusion manifold for step mashing.